"And when they ask us what we're doing, you can say, We're remembering...." (Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451)

Thursday, December 18, 2008

READER QUESTION

Smelly Kelly Jay asks below:

Who is the dark-haired cutie on the middle right of the cast photo (the third one) in the article? I think he's standing next to Morgan Fairchild. I've seen him in another group shot and have never been able to find out the actor's or character's name. Shoot. Who is the handsome gent standing in front of him and touching Stu on the arm? Who is the pretty, young, straight-haired girl behind Jo and beside Stephanie?

The cast photo is from 1976, at a celebration for Search for Tomorrow's 25th Anniversary.

It isn't labeled, so I will need to do some digging to figure out who the man on the right and the long haired girl are. (Do some longtime viewers want to help us out?)

The gent touching Stu's arm, though, is John Cunningham, who played Dr. Wade Collins from 1971 to 1977. In 1983, Cunningham made daytime history when he was part of the debut cast of Loving, playing Garth Slater. His wife, June, was played by Ann Williams, whom you can see in the SFT cast photo above, standing right behind Mary Stuart. Cunningham and Williams were part of a ground-breaking story wherein Garth was sexually abusing their daughter, Lily. It was the first time on daytime that the perpetrator was a biological parent, rather than a stepparent and Loving's creators, Agnes Nixon and Douglas Marland, intended it to last for a lot longer than the six months it eventually did. The problem was that ABC was about to unveil a primetime movie, Something About Amelia, starring Ted Danson and Glenn Close, and they were touting it as the first time incest had been dealt with on American television. The fact that a similar story was currently playing out on their own network didn't serve ABC's purpose, so they ordered the plotline to be quietly terminated.

For a fun bit of Before They Were Stars celebrity spotting, check out the photo below:

That's Stu (Larry Haines) and Jo (Mary Stuart) in the foreground. But right over Jo's shoulder is Morgan Fairchild, next to her is Michael Nouri (Flashdance), and facing him is Joel Higgins (Silver Spoons)!